Wednesday, June 1, 2011

But a weak but persistent low pressure system formed in the Caribbean on Tuesday and is drifting across Florida today.

Southwesterly winds are trying to shear apart the system, and forecasters can't agree on whether the low will survive its trip over the Sunshine State.

Jeff Masters, the Michigan-based tropical weather specialist, said the computer models are having a tough time predicting the system's path or possible development, because it's so small. "They can't see it," he said of the computer models and the low.

Richard Knabb, a former National Hurricane Center staff member who is now the tropical weather specialist for the Weather Channel, doesn't think the low will survive its Florida trip and will be sheared apart.

The National Hurricane Center gives the low a 30 percent chance of developing into a tropical depression.

As you might know, today is the start of the 2011 Atlantic tropical weather season.

Just two weeks ago ... I was talking this morning to John Tomko, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Greer, S.C., and we noted how fast the weather can change.

It was just two weeks ago -- May 17 -- when the high temperature in Charlotte was only 57 degrees. Tomko said it only reached 51 that day at the Greenville-Spartanburg airport.

"That's the power of an upper-level low," Tomko said, referring to the system that caused clouds and rain, keeping temperatures well below averages for that time of year.

That was a clear-cut springtime system, and now we're dealing with big-time summer weather. And it took only two weeks for the change to come about.

About this blog

Steve Lyttle says growing up in northeastern Ohio, with its foot-deep snows and summertime severe thunderstorms, fueled his interest in meteorology. He has written about weather for 10 years at The Observer. Join the discussion about weather trends and weird weather events -- whether local or around the world.